The Hodaka Club Forum

Has anyone here sleeved a Alumiferic cylinder? I have an 03 cylinder that I plan to bore out on my lathe. I'm concerned about the port areas breaking from the boring bar. Any suggestions.
Sterling

Do you have a sleeve? The new sleeve will have the ports machined into it.

While I haven't had it done, and I can't think of anyone specifically who has had an Alumiferric cylinder sleeved . . . I have heard of it being done - and I'm not aware of any reason it couldn't be done.

(Ya can't get foggier encouragement than that can you?)

Ed

The reason to sleeve an Alumiferric cylinder is the bore is totally wore out, or to go to oversize pistons. A lot of the other japanese motors that used Alum cylinders had that same caviat. To go oversize you had to sleeve 'em. You can get the alum bore rechromed at about the same cost as a sleeve job.

Hmmm, thrown got me to thinking that I may have been assuming toooooo much about your situation.

Alumiferric cylinders can be bored 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th over-size without issue at all (witness OEM ART pistons through .040" over-size). In addition, there have been Wiseco pistons for .060" and .080" over-size bores . . . which have been used extensively in Alumiferric cylinders.

So if your original question was something along the lines of ". . . are Alumiferric cylinders boreable?" Yes. Yes they are.

Ed

What I really need to know is how much to take out of cylinder. The spigot diameter is 62.0 mm. The diameter of the iron left in the cylinder is 67 mm, so if I bore the cylinder out to 62 mm that will leave 5.0 mm total thickness, or 2.5 mm will be left on the OD.
My original plan was to bore out all of the iron, but I see a problem with the cast iron ports.
What will then happen when I heat the cylinder? The aluminum cast will expand more that the iron left in the cylinder.
This is going to be a winter project, so I have plenty of time. I'm not in a hurry.
Right now the cylinder is not worth anything, what to I have to lose.
Sterling

You'll have to talk with someone more knowledgeable than I am on the details of sleeving two-stroke cylinders. However, many cylinders would be in the situation of a liner being pressed into an alloy cylinder - where the "cylinder" expands at a faster rate than the sleeve due to temperature. Of course some of that situation is "absorbed" by the fact that the sleeve gets hotter than the alloy cylinder - so the cylinder doesn't actually expand away from the sleeve. Also, the specification for how much bigger the sleeve OD is than the cylinder ID (the "interference fit specification) will have a lot a to do with how stable the whole assembly becomes.

Finally, I'd recommend that you get guidance from a sleeving expert (of which, I am not.)

. . . and consider . . . can your bore be trued up then built up with the new-fangled ceramic coating/liner material to accept a specific size of piston? (Might be a better option) But again, you'll need to talk with someone who knows his stuff on the topic.

Ed

This cylinder is 57.5 mm, that is what it took to clean up. As far as I know the maximum for Nicasil is around .008". I don't know about a ceramic coating.
The centrifugal spun cast iron I bought is enough to do 2 cylinders.
If someone would like to donate an 03 unusable cylinder for my experiment I would appreciate it.
Anyway thanks for the replies.
Sterling

Nicasil was the word which escaped me in my previous response, so I (incorrectly?) inserted the word "ceramic". Sorry 'bout that.

Ed

Sleeving a cylinder is similar to boring for a piston, with the exception that the hole to install the sleeve is a couple thou undersize to achieve a "press fit". Boring out for the sleeve may make the current spigots very thin to non-existent. Best to let someone who has the equipment and expertise to do the work, not really for the home mechanic. And the bore will have to be sized to accept the new piston. And the ports should be matched to the existing ones for smooth flow.

I don't know if Charlie Brown still works at Superior Sleeve, but he resleeved my RM250C2 jug and it is still a flawless runner with the loss of not a single PSI of compression over at least a dozen motos and 8 hours of hare scrambles in addition to practice, sighting laps and generalized farting around and trailing. Check out Superior Sleeve. I'm 100% happy with the work they did on my RM.

swcaudill is way above a "home mechanic". He has performed countless projects that would make your head spin. One of a kind, a real pioneer not afraid to engineer new ideas into practical reality.

Michael Perrett

Cool to know, Michael. I sure hope to hear more as this experiment/project evolves.